March 27 (Bloomberg) -- The euro traded within 0.3 percent
of a four-month low versus the dollar as concerns that debt-crisis contagion will spread threatened to sap confidence in the
17-nation currency bloc.

The shared currency remained lower for a second day after
dropping 1.1 percent on March 25 as Italy prepared to auction as
much as 7 billion euros ($9 billion) of bonds, and ahead of data
forecast to show continued weakness in euro-area consumer
sentiment.

“You’ve still got outstanding issues that need to be dealt
with” in the currency bloc, said Joseph Capurso, a Sydney-based
foreign-exchange strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia,
the nation’s biggest lender. “You’ve still got an economy that
is in recession. That’s likely to keep the euro heavy.”

The euro was little changed at $1.2862 as of 8:12 a.m. in
Tokyo from yesterday, when it touched $1.2829, the lowest since
Nov. 22. It rose 0.2 percent to 121.75 yen. Japan’s currency
fell 0.2 percent to 94.66 per dollar.

Italy auctions as much as 4 billion euros of notes maturing
in 2018 today, and up to 3 billion euros of 10-year bonds. The
euro area’s fourth-biggest economy auctioned 2.8 billion euros
of 2014 zero-coupon bonds this week at a yield of 1.746 percent,
the highest since Dec. 27.